Spring at Last

Yay!  It’s spring and I’m back in the garden, making up for lost time after a very hot fall and a colder than usual winter…

In the side garden I had let the fall weeds grow up into the shrubs and hedges, now paying the extra price because it’s harder to extract them when they’re brown and brittle and thoroughly intertwined.  (I’ve not been a faithful gardener this past year.)  Ruellia stalks are everywhere, English ivy went on a rampage, and scads of wild raspberry vine had built no mean empire right under my nose, except that I was looking the other way.

Armed with a long-sleeve shirt and long pants, my pruners and clippers and pruning saw, I had plenty of yard trash bags just waiting to be filled.  God supplied an absolutely lovely day (low 70’s, low humidity and a wash of spring sunlight) so no reason to delay the inevitable!  I pulled out crab grass, Spanish moss, blue-eyed grasses and sticky vine.  Virginia creeper and some unknown leafy “weed” (ULW) were added to the piles along with sweet gum, camphor and oak seedlings (anyone need some trees?)

Some of these things popped right out of the damp ground when I pulled, but others were a little trickier.  In the liriope hedge I bent down and very carefully extracted the hundreds of ULWs, which easily snapped off just above the soil, leaving long roots in the ground if I didn’t pull just right.  Newly sprouting raspberry vines hid from view under the rose shrubs and azaleas, and sticky vines and wild peas attached to other plants so that when I pulled them their roots also remained in the moldy mulch. 

It occurred to me as I worked that these little guys were a great analogy for the weeds that can choke our lives in God’s spiritual Garden—how important it is to get a good grip on them and make sure the roots are extracted with the plant so there’s nothing to grow back.  It’s so easy to take up the electric hedge trimmers and trim the hedge, lopping off the obvious green briars and other things that poke out the sides and top without taking the time to go into the hedge and get them out by the roots.  A faithful gardener does this, for it assures that the hedge will be clean and healthy for decades to come.

God is a faithful Gardener (John 15:1.)  His Holy Spirit points out the weeds (AKA strongholds) in our lives: perfectionism, envy, laziness, jealousy, pride, a judgmental or complaining spirit, among others.  When these things are too far grown up in our Garden-life, it’s amazing how comfortable we become with their presence, often never seeing them for what they are—weeds of evil that entangle us and take us down.  (Remember that evil is ‘live’ spelled backwards; sooner or later evil brings about death.)

The Good News is that God is waiting to be allowed to come into our Garden and remove—with our permission—these contrary growths, reaching all the way down for the last tiny root and then applying His balm of healing in its place.  We can trim the hedge on the outside, continue to “look good” to others, and feel miserable inside OR we can let Him help us become renourished and ready for a spring and summer full of good growth and peace in His blessed light.

As we remove the big weeds, it becomes easier to see the smaller, more ubiquitous weeds hiding underneath, and with our soil tilled daily by His hand these are quickly removed, too.  Keep a short account with your weeds--  I can tell you after 6 hours in today’s garden, I’m counting on God’s power to be able to walk upright tomorrow!  I praise Him because He is faithful in every way :o)